Editorial | Senator Mitch McConnell is MIA

It takes a lot of brass to obstruct a deal, get left out of it, vote against it, yet bask in shared credit for it.

But that is exactly what Kentucky's senior Sen. Mitch McConnell did this week after some of his more rational Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate pushed him aside to broker an agreement with Democrats to finally begin approving stalled executive branch appointees of President Barack Obama.

Mr. McConnell, minority leader of Senate Republicans, became even too obstructive for his own colleagues this week as they sought to end the endless GOP filibusters that have ground Washington to a halt.

It left Mr. McConnell, who so loves the filibuster he once filibustered himself, sidelined.

It is a stunning fall from power for Mr. McConnell, famous for marching his members in lock-step party discipline, and could leave him considerably weakened as he seeks a sixth Senate term, touting his power and influence.

Mr. McConnell's bluster - calling a rule change to limit filibusters the "nuclear option," threatening retaliation and warning it would "kill the Senate" - likely plays well with some extremist constituents back home.

But it has cost him with his GOP colleagues, including Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

Led by Mr. McCain, Republicans bypassed Mr. McConnell to work quietly with Democrats to reach an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on confirmation of several key appointments that have languished for months - or even years, in case of the case of Richard Cordray, chief of the new Consumer Financial Protection Board.

Mr. McConnell, who had enlisted support of 42 other Senate Republicans pledging to filibuster any nominee to that board, was left entirely out of the deal and deserted by many of those former allies who voted to confirm Mr. Cordray.

Mr. Cordray was confirmed Tuesday on a 66-34 vote after the Senate agreed to end the filibuster over his nomination on a 71-29 vote.

And Mr. McConnell - who now shamelessly praises the deal he had no part of as "a step in the right direction" - voted against both of those measures. He voted to filibuster the nomination - blocking it from even coming to a vote - and when that failed, voted against Mr. Cordray's confirmation.

Prior to those votes, an apparently clueless Mr. McConnell showed up at Mr. Reid's door on Tuesday morning to repeat his demand that in exchange for his cooperation on some nominees, Mr. Reid had to promise to never, ever change Senate rules to reduce filibusters, according to The New York Times.

But by then, Mr. Reid already had cut a separate deal with Mr. McCain and brushed off Mr. McConnell. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Reid appeared on the Senate floor to announce the deal and effusively praised Mr. McCain, who had spent hours negotiating, chiefly with Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The changes are only temporary and involve only agency appointments, not the more contentious appointments of federal judges. In addition to the consumer board, Republicans caved on blocking new nominations to the National Labor Relations Board, and heads of the Labor Cabinet and Environmental Protection Agency.

There is no question that the GOP - in the Senate led in name by Mr. McConnell - lost and lost big in this battle.

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal acknowledged the comedown in an editorial Wednesday headlined "Republicans Get Filibusted."

This newspaper once suggested, after Mr. McConnell failed in his single most important goal of President's Obama's first term to block him from winning a second term, that he consider stepping down as the Senate's Republican leader.

By going around him, it seems his colleagues have done that for him.

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Editorial | Senator Mitch McConnell is MIA

It takes a lot of brass to obstruct a deal, get left out of it, vote against it, yet bask in shared credit for it. But that is exactly what Kentucky?s senior Sen. Mitch McConnell did this week.